The MeidasTouch Podcast - Uh Oh! Trump Collapses in Florida at Worst Time!!!

Episode Date: February 8, 2026

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Donald Trump losing all of his support in Florida and Meiselas interviews the Democratic candidate for Congress in Florida’s 27th Congressional District Richard Lamondin who is running on an affordability agenda against MAGA Congresswoman Salazar who has been doing whatever Trump tell hers to do which has severely harmed her district. Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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talkspace.com. Save $80 with code space 80 at talkspace.com. Donald Trump and Mager Republicans are getting a rude awakening in Florida and they're looking at the midterms coming up and ain't looking good for Trump and MAGA. Some of the latest polling has Trump's approval in Florida at net negative 7.5 percent and that's been decreasing by the day. You have the Maga Republican governor out there, Ron DeSantis commenting about the Texas special elections, including the most recent one for state Senate district number nine, where the Democrat overperformed by plus 31 points and won in a plus 17 Trump district by a plus 14 margin against a Trump endorsed candidate named Lee Wham Gans. Taylor Remitt went on to win that race.

And Ron DeSantis writes, special elections are quirky and not necessarily projectable regarding a general election. That said, a swing of this magnitude is not something that can be dismissed. Republicans should be clear-eyed about the political environment heading into the midterms, and day by day, DeSantis is throwing the Trump regime under the bus even more. That's a story to keep on following. And I saw he came out against data centers and a lot of the AI initiatives of the Trump regime recently as well.

You take a look recently. There was that Miami mayor's race as well. And you had Eileen Higgins becoming the first Democrat elected the mayor of Miami in nearly 30 years when Donald Trump, the same way he endorsed that MAGA candidate in Texas, he endorsed the mayoral Republican candidate Gonzalez in Miami, who suffered a massive loss there. You know, and that brings us really to Florida's 27th Congressional District right here, where you have a big race coming up. You have this MAGA Republican candidate Maria Salazar, her parents, family fled Cuba,

and her whole thing was that she was protecting the population from socialism and dictators, and then she hoisted up Donald Trump, who was a dictator and who does socialism for the billionaires. And she's been saying and promising her constituents all along that promise you, you know, Donald Trump is not going to do immigration raids. He's not going after people who have been here for a long time. He's only going after criminals.

So the day after the presidential election back on, this is by the way, is what she's been saying. She's been MAGA through and through. And so I'll just give you one clip, for example. The day after the presidential election, when she was interviewed by PBS, she said, I promise you everybody,

Donald Trump is supporting my Dignity Act. It's called the Dignity Act because if you've been here and you're hardworking and you're an immigrant, you have nothing to worry about at all. You're good. It's only the violent criminals. Trump told me, he promised me, we're going to get this act passed.

Even if we don't get the act passed, he supports it. Watch what she said on PBS the day after the election. I am sure that we're not, that the Trump administration is not going to be targeting those people who have been here for more than five years that have American kids, that don't have criminal records, that have been working in the economy and paying taxes.

I am sure that they're going to hone in on. the criminals who arrived less than four years ago. Because I wrote the Dignity Act, and I am the first one who understands that you have to give some type of dignity to those who have been here for more than five years. People who have roots in the country, not people who are coming to commit crimes.

If I can just clarify from you, have you received those kinds of details from anyone in a potential Trump administration? Because so far what we've heard is proposal for mass deportations. We have about 30 seconds left. Have you gotten those assurances? mass deportation to those who are committing crimes who have been here for less than five years.

You understand that you have millions of undocumented who are contributing with the economy and are helping our country to be a better one. Checking in on the Trump administration, you support what she just said. She said that she spoke to Trump. You read the legislation. You're with it. It's not what you were doing. You were attacking hardworking people here in this country and American citizens as well.

Let's check in with the White House and see what they had to say recently. Congresswoman Lodzalzar introduced legislation that would give some illegal immigrants in the country have to citizenship. Ten Republicans signed on to what she's calling the Dignity Act. I'm curious what the White House's position is on the legislation and if the president would veto this bill if it made it to discuss. From my understanding, the White House nor the president has actually read through this legislation. We've been focused on, of course, the one big beautiful bill, which passed, which is another historic accomplishment of this president in record time, the Genius Act this week, the rescissions package. That's been the...

They haven't read it. They don't support it. They haven't read it. They don't support it. So, Congresswoman Salazar now says, you know, Hispanics are leaving the GOP in large numbers. We got issues. And then here's what she says about Machado, the former leader of Venezuela, or the oppositionally. a rather a Venezuela. Let's play this clip.

The America first agenda. Sorry, America first agenda. So just real quickly, if you can. Maria Machado, you just heard what Congressman Crow said about her not being part of this, at least the initial stage of this plan. I know that you traveled to Oslo with her. Was she disappointed to hear that they're elevating, they're allowing the elevation of the vice president to run the country for now?

Well, I have not been able to talk to her, but I do know that she is. is very much pro-America and she dedicated that Nobel Peace Prize to the president. We have to put things into context and the opposition within Venezuela understands them. We need to this Delci lady who swore herself in and that we have to work with her for now. But Marco Rubio said it. It's been 48 hours. Let's give us a few months until we create the stability. And I'm sure the Maria Karina Machado. Let's just give a few more months. Give me two more weeks. It's all going to be better.

I promise you. I want to bring in Richard Lamondon. Richard, great to see you. Richard, executive entrepreneur over there in Miami. You're running against Maria Salazar in the 27th Congressional District. You know, just people know her background. She was like a newscaster in the area. You know, she ran making all of these promises.

And she lies about everything. And it's very dangerous lies because she lured her community into, basically a death trap and now it's like a Ponzi scheme where she keeps moving the goalpost as her people and the district is under attack. Talk to us about the district that you're running for. Absolutely. So this district is in many ways the key district here in Florida. It covers the heart of Miami. You mentioned Eileen Higgins mayoral victory. A big part of this district is the city in Miami where she won. It's a district that is heavily Cuban, heavily Venezuelan, basically Pan Latin American and you nailed every piece of this where she's been with Trump every step of the way.

She has said, like you said in the clip, that these, that we're only going to focus on criminals, long to focus on criminals. And yet, uh, here this district is also the one within our backyard is alligator Alcatraz and that prison camp out there where she went out to the site toward it and said, uh, the beds were pretty comfortable. So this is a congresswoman that is basically a weather vein. She leads from behind on every issue. One of the big things that she has done is not support the Venezuelan community. You mentioned Maria Corrin-Machado, but also Venezuelans here in South Florida have lost temporary protected status while the same Maduro regime is in power. She has not stood up to administration when Cubans have had double the number of deportations this year than they've had

last last year. A lot of seniors, many of them, of Cuban descent have been left in fear because she initially did not support expanding the SNAP benefits that almost were cut. She has supported the Caroline Leavitt talked about the big beautiful bill. She voted to cut a lot of programs for the seniors in her district. This district has one of the largest numbers of Obamacare recipients in the entire country and she is one who cut the tax credits that made it affordable. Some of the people in my district I speak to, they're their insurance bills have gone from $450 to over $1,200 a month. So this is a congresswoman that has repeatedly failed.

The difference now from previously is that people have caught on to this. I go into a lot of spaces with people who voted Trump three times, Salazar multiple times, and they talk about how they're fed up with her. She's never in the community. She's focused on political theater, not the real problems in our community. And the fact is her only real solution in this problem. You mentioned the Dignity Act, It's not a pathway to any kind of citizenship.

There is no pathway to citizenship in that law. It's a penalty box. It requires immigrants who come here to pay additional fees. It is one that makes sure that we have a second class of citizen here in the United States, something that is completely against the entire concept of the American dream. And she is someone that has failed this community every turn, and that's a big reason why I'm running. Right. I mean, she's a total fraud.

I mean, she's said this Dignity Act is going to make sure everybody here is protected, we've got your back. Mass deportations does not mean mass deportations. When Trump says he's coming for you regardless of your background, he's not actually going to be doing that. I got your back. So then Trump revokes temporary protected status. He goes after hardworking people, just people who are here, family members, children. We see the which by the way, the big one here right now is the Haitians, right? So the Haitians only recently got restored. We have a huge Haitian community down here in South Florida. So part of the interruption, but this is something that it's not just Venezuela community. It's not just

the Nicaragua and the Cuban community, but the Haitian community. The city is one that is built by immigrants. It's one that when you come here, you could tell that Spanish in many ways is the first language. And so, you know, this is, this is a congresswoman that is, it never shows up in the the community, has never hosted a single public town hall her entire time in office. And so a lot of times when I speak to people, I said, what do you think is going to be different in the next five months that didn't happen the last five years. She's only passed and written and passed one bill her entire time in Congress. And it's guess what?

About birds. So she is someone who literally has been ineffective as a congresswoman and people are ready for a change. Right. So then she's rooting for the invasion of Venezuela because she has to move the goalposts in her Ponzi scheme because now if she can get Maria Karina Machado, the opposition leader, installed as the leader and start, you know, reuniting families with Venezuela after a lot of the TPS has been revoked and people being deported to a repressive regime and having these atrocities.

And her mind, she's like, okay, that's my out. Look, we got Machado. I kept my, and then Donald Trump's like, yeah, Machado doesn't have respect of the people in Venezuela. I'm going to go with the Maduro regime. I'm going to go with Delsey Rodriguez because Trump opens up a Qatari bank account to sell the oil there to his rich oligarch friends, to then give himself the money and hide it in Katari bank accounts, makes Machado give him the Nobel Prize, like the actual physical metal. Framed, by the way, like a frame. Frame. And it's just like it's like mocking your district. It's like, it's the, it's, I can't think of anything worse to do, but you're saying people are finally waking up. Like you're seeing like, when was the final thing? Because I saw videos, you know, still, you know, of Little Havana, you know, five months ago. And people would be like, well, you know, I don't like his policy here.

I don't like his immigration policy. But I do like his policy on, you know, transgender sports. And I'm like, what are you even talking about? You're an immigrant. The policy is to get rid of you. What are you talking? What are you? So where are we now?

Look, it's, it's very hard to treat people in Miami. and especially a lot of times nationally, the Democratic Party has tried to treat Hispanic people as a monolith. It is not the case at all. It breaks down very much by age, how many generations have been here. There is an immovable group,

which is the very old school Cuban community, but there are more recent arrivals as well. I will tell you for a fact that down here, it may sound silly to many folks listening, but the attack of socialist does land here in South Florida because many of these people have fled regimes that have declared themselves that. And so, for example, I was on a Telemundo interview

where they asked me, like, what do you think about the Democratic Party being viewed as socialist and communist? And I said, well, only one of us has created hundreds of jobs. I have, but my opponents created none, which one of us is the socialist? The answer is none of us. But that's the kind of energy that we, as Democrats, need to focus on down here to combat that. And that's the kind of energy that then,

once I can clear the mind of that sort of like specter of Castro, kind of rising up here in South Florida, we're all dealing with the same issues here. I can tell you at the presidential level, I've had people tell me Greenland was the last straw, that the murders of two American citizens in Minnesota was the last straw. You know, today we have a post we saw where, you know, the Obamas are being portrayed as monkeys being posted by the president. Everyone's kind of having their own last straw, but the unifying factor that unites everyone is the fact that Miami has been since COVID, one of the most unaffordable cities in this entire country.

And when we all, when I talk to you about the impact that the big, bad, ugly, whatever the heck bill you want to call it these days has had on this community, it's had an enormous negative impact on seniors, on young people. I talk about, and I talk about my policies in the terms of freedom. Because I think every candidate has their own district. In a district like mine, which is purple, leads slightly Republican, but it's key to us flipping the house and maintaining it. I talk about the fact that you can't make it in America if you're not free to be healthy, if you don't have access to health insurance. You can't make it in this country if you don't have the freedom to raise your family

because you can't afford to send them to preschool, which down here is incredibly expensive, that you're not free if you can't afford a home of any kind and get a roof over your head. And you're not free if our seniors can't retire with dignity. And when I talk about the fact that if we don't set, is that a Democratic Party a foundation for people to be successful, then nobody can achieve the American dream. That is where I break through a lot of the partisan barriers because most people at a values level agree that everyone deserves a fair shot. But that's kind of the way I'm breaking through. Everyone's different in doing it. But couching my values and the same ones I've built in my business, which fights climate change into this campaign is how I reach these people.

And it's been incredibly effective so far. Yeah, we know, it's just so fascinating because to me it's so obvious that Trump is the Castro. You know, Trump is the Maduro. Trump is that guy. And part of being that guy is to tell you, I'm not that guy and accuse everything else of exactly what you're doing.

He's doing price controls. He is doing the same exact type of repression against freedom of speech. He's the one hoisting up the oligarchy and repressing everybody else. everybody else, but I could go on and on that forever. Before we go though, two things. One, where can people learn more about the campaign?

And just your final message out there to people in your district and to the rest of the country right now who may be seeing you for the first time. Yeah, so you could find us at richard.vote, Richard for Congress on social media. And I think what's important understand, both people in my district and people throughout the country, this is one of the top flippable seats

in the entire country. You know, I've spent my life up until this point building a company EcoFi that fights climate change, but bringing businesses into the climate fight. And a district like this is key to Democrats, not just flipping the house this time, but maintaining a majority for years to come to make sure that we can not just roll back the damage this administration has done, but also bring this country towards a better future. And so to those across the United States, it's important for you to know that you're paying attention to these districts, focusing on these flippable seats. What that does is that also builds a beachhead to start pulling Florida back, which we all know has gone the crazy direction over the last few years. And making sure that when it comes time to presidential elections, we continue to have the kind of infrastructure that we need to flip states that have drifted more in a red direction. So I have the ability to do that because I have a business background, but I've given paid parental leave in my company. I pay people well, what they're worth, you know, generous paid time off.

I have instilled democratic values into every aspect of my life. And now is the time for us to go out in the community, point out all the ways this administration has failed and flip the U.S. House and the Senate and make sure we can actually deliver real results for people. And that's entirely what I'm focused on. Richard LeMondon, appreciate you. Appreciate you. Thanks for having me on. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 6 million subscribers.

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